Our services
Awareness and education
We run Awareness and Education Promotion geared to breakdown bias and stigma through Seminars, Webinars, In-campus Health Lectures and Printed Education Materials (PEMs).
Today, we focus on the intersection of Youth Mental Health and Teenage & Unplanned Pregnancy.
Halad to Health’s Awareness and Education Promotion goes beyond the statistics by humanising the numbers and recasting the narrative, allowing us to guide our audience to understanding the real human cost of these issues, and to recognising the opportunities to become catalysts of change.
We then pass down information to our capacitated guidance designates and youth leaders to sustainably scale campaigns in their communities (in-school and out of school).
Capacity building
The law-mandates one (1) Registered Guidance Counsellor to 500 Students. In the public school system in rural Bukidnon, the ratio is 1:126,000+. 1
The reality is, not Registered Counsellors but Designates 2 fill these gaps. In some cases, one (1) Guidance Designate is expected to support 9,000 Students. In out-of-school communities, there is no facility for support.
We are changing this landscape by building local capacities that involves the whole community to make support accessible and meaningful.
We train and upskill Guidance Designates, Teachers, non-Teaching Personnel and Youth Leaders to provide various layers of support for those who need it when they need it.
1 Ratio in the public school system of the Department of Education Division of Bukidnon
2 Guidance Designates are unlicensed guidance advocates who fill the role of Registered Guidance Counsellors, often undertrained and under-resourced.
Community support
Involving the youth in helping break down the barriers to support. So, we empower young people to become allies and to provide peer support through:
- The Mindanaoan Safe Space Confessions, a Private Facebook Group that boasts of safe, non-judgemental, and bias-free discussions and support group sessions, facilitated by trained Peer Counsellors and Halad Professionals and Advocates.
- The physical Safe Spaces, where periodic peer counselling and focus group discussions are available, and further referrals to licensed professionals can be accessed if needed.
Free counselling
Mental health conditions cost the Philippine economy a staggering PHP 68.9 billion (US$ 1.37 billion) each year.3
Unfortunately, young people in rural areas like Bukidnon are even more disadvantaged due to the poor national ratio of <1 Mental Health Worker for every 100,000 Filipinos.
Our early intervention provides free counselling to young people (aged 10-24) who otherwise don’t have the capacity and opportunity to access support.
3 (Department of Health, 2021)
We run at least 2 Health Fairs in schools, and 2 Medical Missions in a rural Philippine community hospital or health facility every year.
Our International and Filipino Volunteers organise Safe Space Fairs that include Leadership and Youth Allyship, Health Lectures, Experiential Activation, Check-ins and Counselling, and Social Impact Filmmaking Workshops, among many others. These fairs scale our programs, whilst helping our Mental Health Workers Advocates reach and support more young people.
To contextualise missions to the local reality, our international volunteers are equipped with ample Cultural Orientation, Health Topic Training, and Clinical Exposure through medical missions.